as he crept away:

"I couldn't help it, your Honor. I shouldn't have been listening at the
door; but I have loved Miss Olympia, as we used to call her, more than
anything in the world ever since she came to make my old master's house
a place of sunshine, and all I'm sorry for is that God had to do the
finishing which twenty years ago I could have done myself."

CHAPTER XXVI. "BITTER AS THE GRAVE"

But Nixon was wrong. Mr. Steele did not die--not this time. Cared for
by the physician who had been hastily summoned, he slowly but surely
revived and by midnight was able to leave the house. As he passed the
mayor on his way out, I heard Mr. Packard say:

"I shall leave the house myself in a few minutes. I do not mean that
your disaffection shall ruin my campaign any more than I mean to leave
a stone unturned to substantiate my accusation that you had no right to
marry and possess legal claims over the woman whose happiness you have
endeavored to wreck. If you are wise you will put no further hindrance
in my way."

I heard no answer, for at that instant a figure appeared in the open
door which distracted all our attention. Miss Thankful, never an early
sleeper and much given, as we know, to looking out of her window, had
evidently caught the note of disaster from the coming and going of the
doctor. She had run in from next door and now stood panting in the open
doorway face to face with Mr. Steele, with her two hands held out, in
one of which, remarkable as it seems to relate, I saw the package of
bonds which I had been fortunate enough to find for her.

The meeting seemed to paralyze both; her face which had been full of
tremulous feeling blanched and hardened, while he, stopped in some
speech or final effort he was about to make, yielded to the natural
brutality which underlay his polished exterior, and, in an access of
rage which almost laid him prostrate again, lifted his arm and struck
her out of his path. As she reeled to one side the bonds flew from her
hand and lay at his feet; but he saw nothing; he was already half-way
down the walk and in another moment the bang of his carriage door
announced his departure.

The old lady, muttering words I could not hear, stared mute and stricken
at the bonds which the mayor had hastened to lift and place in her
hands.

Pitying her and anxious to relieve him from the embarrassment of her
presence when his own mind and heart were full of misery, I rushed
down to her